The Comfort of Minute Measuring Sticks

To the casual observer, you might think I don't clean my fingernails very often.  The grey smudge on my right thumbnail, though, isn't dirt. It's a small bruise.  And, with some fascination,  I have watched it slowly make its way to the edge of my nail, evidence that life, indeed, is moving forward.

On the days when I overlook my thumb's progress, there is always the backup band making its way up my big toes, the tattered silver-and-blue paint chips of an early August home pedicure.  More than once, I've reached for cotton balls and acetone, ready to rub off the reminder of those first days of the school year.  Each time, though, I stop, opting rather for the slow experiment of marking my days in high-gloss remnants.

Through this strange and often brutal winter,  I have drawn some comfort from my keratin measuring sticks, their steadfastness buoying me up when I would otherwise swear that spring will never come.  There, too, are the birds, the Cardinals and Robins and even the Caroline Wren, each shaking off the pre-dawn chill with its audacious and throaty song of hope.

I am grateful for the hum of the universe, and its display of utter unconcern for first-world humans and their app-laden lives.  Especially today, when I was awakened not by bird song but much, much earlier by lists of things banging around in my head, and worries that, truly, are not worries at all but, rather, made-up things that I've given myself to do.

Ultimately, what pulls me out of bed--too early, even, for the morning paper--is the lull of a fire in our fireplace, the quiet, warm and committed hump that is Finn, sitting curled up next to me on the couch.  I am drawn by the low hum that is not human.  The grey spot on my thumb, quietly making its way to the edge of the universe, where it will unlatch itself and float away forever, tickling the stars along the way.

Digital Detritus

We had dinner with friends the other night in a lovely Country Club home, a home none of us owns.  On sabbatical from their college in Maryland, they caught wind of a Wesleyan professor who would be in Switzerland for the year, which is how they ended up in this home.

It was a fun evening filled with good food and lively conversation.  After dinner, as plates were being cleared and coffee was being poured, Mark and I wandered into the living room to see what we could learn about said Wesleyan professor and family.  First, we scanned their CD collection, which was both eclectic and large.

While running my fingers along the spines of the cases, though, I had a realization that caught me off guard. Whatever I hoped to learn about them from their taste in music would be old news already.  Why?  Because I bet that this professor hasn't bought an actual CD since iTunes manhandled the music industry.  That meant that the stories I was culling from all these bands were at least five years old.  Hardly revealing, unless I was studying history.

And that's when I realized that bookshelves are on the verge of becoming archival, too, as more and more people push their favorite authors onto Nooks and Kindles.

Whatever is a nosy visitor to do?

Sure, there's still the medicine cabinet, but I've never been a fan of trolling someone else's bathroom vanity, unless I had some dinner stuck in my teeth.

And, since I've already got David Macauley on my brain this week, I find myself recalling his strangely brilliant children's book titled "Motel of the Mysteries."  Set 2,000 years in the future, it tells the tale of an amateur archeologist who happens upon the remains of a motel destroyed in a 1985 natural disaster.  The discoverer of this future Pompei, he begins unearthing pieces of daily life--from a "Do Not Disturb" sign to a skeleton atop a toilet seat.  What follows are his wild theories of an ancient religion revealed in this "archaic burial chamber" he has discovered. 

What on earth will people use in the not-so-distant future to make sense of the lives of others?  What happens to our stories--both intended and unintentional--that once were told by the books we read, the albums and CDs we collected, the odd gathering of tchotchkes on our dusty shelves?  Surely, no one will ask to see our iPads or Kindles to learn more about us.  Surely, no one will privately peruse our electronics to learn more about us.

Well, maybe no one except the NSA.

What a sad side effect of our digital living, that so many conversation starters, so many opportunities to learn more about each other have been digitized to death and we are left with nothing but air and ear buds and digital detritus that tell us little about the people who surround us.

Now You See 'Em, Now You Don't

Some time after having and falling in love with my kids, I also fell in love with David Macauley's "How Things Work" books.  There is something enticing and mind-bending about cross sections of buildings and cars and human bodies.

Actually, I have always had a fascination with the functional details of things, even though I consider myself a generalist (which is just code for "now I don't have to try very hard because I only desire to know some things about lots of things, and nothing very deeply").  Show me the star-studded nub of a Cottonwood twig, tease me with the science behind Pop Rocks, and tempt me with unshakeable tales of solid-state electronics and I am a happy, if not slightly dazed, woman. 

Maybe that's why I haven't quite "gotten" the two-man bobsled event this year.  From my perspective, it just looks like two men crouching inside a small device and flinging themselves aimlessly down an icy hill.  Yet, last night, in an interview, one of the U.S. bobsledders was dissecting the intricacies of his 90-second trail-side job and how difficult it is.  That's when I found myself wishing that they'd make see-through bobsleds so the rest of us could be rightly impressed.  In his honor, I stuck around for a few more races, trying hard to appreciate the unseen manipulations of ropes and pulleys that kept the athletes on the right path. 

This desire to see through things, to wish things to be more transparent and revealing, is probably why I both love and loathe such shows as "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black."  These gritty, well-written dramas offer an insider's glance into worlds I am otherwise not privy to.  Not that I want to be privy to them.  Truly, I cannot take my eyes from them, so compelling and unbelievable are their worlds,  spattered and laid bare across my 32-inch screen.  

One former Lincolnite, who recently wrapped up employment in the White House, told a friend that the way people in "House of Cards" behave is also, pretty much, the way the people in the House--and the Senate and, I suppose all of political Washington--behave.   Good lord, I thought, suddenly hungering for greater opacity.

And, really, isn't that the fine line we find ourselves drawing and redrawing every single day of our lives--figuring out what to reveal and what to hold back, what needs to be known now and what can be tucked away for a rainy day?  Where it becomes difficult is in those arenas in which someone else makes those decisions for the rest of us, usually without consultation.  This is, I suppose, one reason that the legislature recently debated about the transparency or secrecy of building a college-president pool of candidates. 

I have never been a big fan of the back door, but I would be lying if I said that I always like what walks in through the front door, especially when that something reveals a hardness or a truth that is difficult to swallow.  Better, it seems, for me to experience some of that transparency in colorful, graphic-filled books and on-demand t.v shows, rather than in the harsh light of a February afternoon. 

Still, I'd like to be the one to make that decision.

. . All My Whites are Grey

What to do when February gets all long and stretchy, like warm taffy?  Only it's not warm.  Just long and stretchy. 

Me?  When I've grown tired of my winter wardrobe (something that others grew tired of within days of me rolling it out), I tend to eat desserts for breakfast.  At least on the weekends.  It doesn't accomplish much but I like to tell myself that smelling like chocolate before I get to the Sports page is kind of rebellious and fun.  Until 10 a.m. rolls around and I feel kind of crappy.  Anyway, maybe if I eat enough desserts for breakfast, I'll need a new winter wardrobe.  That'd be good, right?

I suppose I could watch the Olympics.  But the whole Russian thing has made them seem kind of creepy and dark.  And I was downright troubled after reading this morning's op-ed piece about Vladmir Putin choosing Sochi because it is so close to a troubled region.  Really?  Going mano a mano, just to prove something?  Sure, four out of five Olympics rings agree that there's still something good about the games, but I'm just not quite convinced.  Not yet, anyway.

Then there's that 24-hour dance video to Pharrel's song Happy.  It's a catchy little tune, but I'm not sure watching it for 24 hours would make me feel better.  I have had enough experience with overdoing the good things to know that, in the end, what's left is just...well, long and stretchy, myself included.

Come February, Mark starts pulling out his garden porn, dusty piles of last year's catalogs, all full of seeds and plants and rocks and things.  Like that America song, though, these catalogs don't do much for me.  Although I have always gotten a kick out of the "vegetable" sections, where they sell purple carrots and bi-colored corn (except in Kansas, where it's prohibited by law, by God). 

No, maybe the best tonic for February is just looking out the window, and hoping a cardinal lands on a branch of the crab-apple tree.  That's why I put out a pile of safflower each day.  To lure feathery, bright signs of spring from the knotty, bare limbs of the neighbor's wisteria. 

Wisteria...surely, that names comes from "wistful," to feel vague longing.  Yes, that's it.  I am longing for a cardinal, all dressed up in red, to break through the steely grey of a February day and make me remember spring again.

Shoulda Woulda Coulda Snow-Day Fun

Today was a Snow Day (yes, it is capitalized) and I don't have much to show for it.  Which is exactly what I wanted.  And needed.  It's nice when "want" and "need" intersect.

So, I spent much of the day--well, actually, all of it--braless and wandering.  Wandering from room to room, food to drink, sidewalk to neighbor's home, crossword to book. 

Yes, my shelves remain undusted. But I did catch up with some friends, finish up a puzzle, warm up the dog's frozen paws, and even clear up the driveway--my nod to all those folks who insist that I simply must do something practical.  Plus,  I feel really good after I shovel.

Lately, I've been thinking about the word "should" and what a surprisingly sharp and ugly word it is.  "Should" loves to bury its  gnarled roots deep in public spaces, places where others are calling the shots and taking names.  It has, I suspect, caused more broken marriages, more heartache, more self doubt than any other word in our vocabulary.   "Should" is like a 13-year-old American girl, utterly unable to ignore the inane hum of group think.

Without the background drone of "should," I'd like to think that PACs would crumble, mean girls would stumble, and more people would more easily recognize the mumbo jumbo that makes up so much of hate radio and radicalized religions.

Sure, maybe I should have done something more with this blustery, free day.  But I choose to turn a blind eye--and a deaf ear--to that ugly, judgmental, finger-wagging word and live my life in a different rhythm, drawing from a different vocabulary.  And, frankly, it feels pretty darned good. 

Now You See Him, Now You Don't

Phillip Seymour Hoffman died in his apartment today, found with a needle sticking out of him.  A man with immense talent and--I thought--good brains to boot, he must have been haunted by demons and secret desires and ended up dying, utterly alone, in the end.  His death made me think of the warnings of an old book written by another smart man. 

In 1985, Neil Postman wrote "Amusing Ourselves to Death," an account that predicted television and its content would lead to society's demise.  I think "Facebook" or "Twitter" or "smartphones" could exchange places with "television" and Postman's ideas would still hold true.

It is ironic that in this, the most connected of all ages, so often, we are alone.  Alone with our devices which become vices which become crisis.

The other day, when I looked across the East library, I saw dozens of people, some sitting shoulder to shoulder.  Yet, virtually every one of them was alone, disconnected from the people sitting next to them, as they maniacally managed their digital selves.

I am not suggesting that these kids will move from smartphones to heroin; rather, I am trying to make sense of a society filled with so many disconnected, isolated people who so willingly give up the flesh for the promise of a few moments of fabricated amusement.

Certainly, I'm no better.  Here I sit, after all, on a sparkly, windless Sunday afternoon, staring into the screen of my laptop, lamenting this addiction to all things electronic.  Even my dog, Finn, knows not to pester me when my fingers dance across the keyboard.  Not that he doesn't try, repositioning himself under my legs, his ears perked up as he scans the backyard antics of the neighborhood squirrels.

Yet, I cannot be bothered with all of that.  Eventually, he slunks back to his dog bed, a long sigh of resignation as he mumbles something biting under his acrid breath.

It would do me good to wrap this thing up and throw on a coat right now.  To pull myself away from these thoughts, the nagging image of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, slumped against a chair, lifeless and alone-- and me, sitting by myself, staring into the screen of my computer.